


Faith

by Ilthit



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Community: femslashficlets, F/F, Hobbits, Minor Character(s), Resistance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 05:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4126668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/pseuds/Ilthit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Troubles are many. Estella seeks refuge at Diamond's house.</p><p>Written for femslashficlets@dw prompt #011 and also Ruby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rubynye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/gifts).



Used to be you didn’t need to believe in much. Things were either fibs or facts, nothing in between that required faith in spite of evidence. Now with the Shire overrun from with big ugly ruffians and new and worse rules popping up every moment, there was a lot they wanted you to believe in. _It’ll all turn out the best_. _There’s a war out there that’ll get us if we don’t stick together._

Diamond knew the war was already here, only it wasn’t knives at dawn, flying banners, or charging ponies. War was friends who disappeared in the night, swallowed up in the Lockholes and their names forbidden to those who were left.

When Estella Bolger showed up at her doorstep one morning in a light shawl and a handbag stuffed to bursting, Diamond ushered her in without a question, but looked up and down the road to make sure there were no lurkers about. She locked the door behind them. “Is Fredegar--?”

“He’s fine.” Estella dropped her bag and pulled her mess of blackcurrant curls back behind her ears. “I just need not to be seen for a while, is all, and I’m not a one to stay indoors, you know that! Your da won’t mind, will he?”

Diamond shook her head. Da had gone to ground weeks ago.

-

They spent the afternoon making mash out of old bread and potatoes, far more than they needed, because Molly down the road had just been delivered of a girl and could use help feeding the three she already had. Life had to go on.

“Lobelia Sackville-Baggins,” Estella said under her breath while she hammered the cracker-hard left-over loaf. Wham, the mallet came down.

“Stel.”

“They’re not gonna shut me up, Di. Billy Graveltorn.”

“Shh!” Diamond shook peels off her knife. “Bungo Littlehorn,” she whispered.

-

Estella wrote, reams of letters that they wouldn’t be able to deliver unopened unless they walked to Frogmorton themselves. Diamond left her to it. There was always work to do in the cowshed and in the garden. They had milk, tomatoes enough for two, and thank goodness old Peggy the hen wasn’t over her egg-laying days yet.

She was glad Stel had come. She’d been rattling in the old hole by herself long enough. Before the Troubles, there’d always been Da’s big laugh resounding somewhere, and Em and the girls in the kitchen or around the yard, and Ginny come every other day to weed the plants. Now Diamond weeded and milked and shoveled and baked all the long day, and yet it felt like she was doing less with herself than ever. She’d been waiting. For Ruffians, or for Da – she wasn’t sure. But it was Stel who had come.

-

Stel was shorter and thicker than Diamond, but skirtwaists could be turned up and bodices relaced. Stel found a pair of Da’s old gardening trousers and turned up the calves. Di soon followed suit, and the problem of muddy knees or hems was resolved.

In the evenings, they’d make tea and huddle over the candlelight to read what letters had reached them. Freddy was still safe. Diamond’s cousins sent their regards and enquired after a recipe for grape jam. Then to bed, bone-tired as often as not.

Lasses could share blankets, especially when they’d known each other since they were wee – plump, freckled Diamond with sand between her toes, and young Stel with her unsettling beauty and knobbly knees, who grew tall young and then never got any taller. Diamond remembered summers they’d been visiting the same distant relatives near where you could see the sea glinting in the distance. It seemed in her memory it was always summer there.

They held each other in the dark, sometimes, huddled close, wordless and still; at least one of them with a shiver of unnamed longing.

Stel was still writing. She dropped the letters off with Rob Findkey whenever he rolled by with his oxen. The nights grew longer.

-

Frantic knocking brought them both bolt upright, spilling blankets as their feet hit the cold floor. Diamond grabbed a shawl to cover her night-shirt, but Stel didn’t bother, bouncing for the door.

There was Rob and Molly’s eldest, with another young hobbit Diamond didn’t recognize. Rob was bleeding from a cut to the head. Fear like a blast of ice-flecked wind hit her, but she ran to throw another log on the few embers still glowing in the fireplace.

“No! No light, if you please,” said the unknown hobbit. “Have you a cellar, miss? Only for an hour or two--”

“I have something better,” said Diamond, pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders, and lead them to the tunnel.

It was hidden behind the barrels and a collection of broken rakes. Made of earth fortified with beams, it led through the hill to the other side, near the river, where the woods grew thick.

Stel came trundling down the stairs, carrying bundles and leather flasks, dressed in Da’s trousers and the thickest coat of Diamond’s that fit. Diamond felt her heart lodge in her throat.

“Come on, Di, get ready!” Stel, grinning from ear to ear, leaned up to kiss Diamond on the cheek.

Diamond glanced up. Rob and the others were already splashing down the tunnel. She grabbed Stel and pulled her up to a thorough kiss, a lovers’ kiss. Stel wrapped her free arm around her and kissed her back, gentle and sweet like a memory of summer.

When they parted, her smile had faded. “You’re not coming.”

Diamond shook her head. “I’m more use back here, making mash and milking cows. Can’t shoot an arrow to save my life.”

“I’ll shoot a dozen for you.”

“And then come back?”

There was that grin again, and hope flared in Diamond’s chest. No – not hope.

Faith.

 


End file.
